SteveThaiBinh

With the possible exception of Japan, pretty much every state in the world is cobbled together out of different ethnic groups, and most of them by outsiders, too. The solution to this is politics, an arena where differences can be aired and compromises reached in peace. If the 27+ ethno-linguistic groups of South Africa can live together peacefully, so can the Iraqis. The insurgents' crime (one of them, anyway) is that they are disrupting politics and peaceful co-existence, and putting off the day when Iraq returns to normality. Israel has no greater or lesser right to exist than Palestine or any other state in the Middle East, and both the Israelis and the Arab States should try to deal with that fact. The Israelis are indeed only one of a number of ethnic groups that have shared, and competed for, the territory that is now Israel and the Occupied Territories. We are now moving to a situation where the state of Israel is recognising that a state of Palestine should exist, and slowly fewer Palestinians are demanding that Israel cease to exist. Surely that's progress? The priority now is to create a viable Palestinian State, as it is only when a Palestinian State exists and formally recognises the existence of an Israeli State that lasting peace is achievable.

Killing civilians is not effective in the slightest, nor good tactics. Iraq will be decades recovering from this, both in terms of the lost skills of the people killed and the pyschological damage to the survivors. Without the insurgency, the US would probably have been gone by now. The insurgents see only the short term goal of evicting the US and ignore the long term goal of building a strong nation. It's criminal stupidity, as well as bloody murder.

And the industrial and military power of Hiroshima was largely intact, because the US had made a decision not to attack it with conventional forces so that it could measure accurately the impact of the atomic bomb. These are not the actions of a country which is deperately doing everything it can to win a war whose outcome is unclear. The US didn't need to bomb Hiroshima for military reasons. It could have dropped a bomb out in Tokyo Bay and scared the Japanese that way. Civilian target, or civilian death? 'Target' is the preferred option of the US military, because it condemns the terrorists whilst excusing the civilian deaths caused by US actions: "Terribly sorry we killed your children, but we were aiming at the terrorists". Was there ever a term more offensive than 'collateral damage'? The West has written the rules of war to suit itself. Indeed. That applies to all sides. Above all it applies to politicians on both sides who create an environment in whcih such murders are more likely, simply because the alternative of peacemaking is not politically convenient for them. Perhaps it should 'go' to the people who live there and who have lived there for generations. Self-determination, anyone? What business does Israel, Egypt or anyone else have in 'giving' this land?

OK, lots of interesting things going on here. That I've never heard before. What's your source for this information? Who made this declaration, given that a state of Palestine didn't exist? I have to say, my initial feeling is that this sounds like Israeli propaganda - Israeli 'historians' have long been saying that when Jewish settlers arrived, both in Israel proper and in the occupied territories, they found the land abandoned. Palestinians claim that some of them were forced to leave their homes at the point of a gun, whereas others fled in fear before the Israelis arrived. If we're accepting that as legal abandonment then we're allowing a very dangerous precedent. Israelis, particularly settlers, have been criticised on environmental grounds for making drastic changes to their environment without the water resources to maintain them. I think they're trying to create conditions of greenery that aren't appropriate to their local context. They're also condemned for having sprinklers on their lawns while many Palestinians do not have the WHO recommended daily allowance of water. For years we in Britain said we would never buckle to the demands of the IRA, and it got us nowhere. When we agreed to meet with Sinn Fein and to address, not the direct demands of the terrorists, but the concerns of the community that they represented, progress was possible. This is because the IRA, like Hamas but unlike al-Qaeda, have a specific set of objectives, many of which (excluding the destruction of Israel in Hamas' case) are legitimate. What concessions? Israel has occupied the Palestinian territories and denied the Palestinian people freedom and statehood. The Gaza Strip isn't Israel's and was never Israel's. It was taken illegally in a war. A temporary occupation on grounds of security was indeed justified - Israel was not the aggressor in the war which caused the occupation, the Arab States were. But the establishment of settlements was totally unjustified - it was a response to the Israeli right who dreamed of a Greater Israel, and to me, the idea of a Greater Israel is as repugnant as the ideas of those Palestinians who deny the right of Israel to exist at all. To construct settlements in the Occupied Territories is no different than if the US and UK were to start constructing settlements in Iraq now, annexing territory for themselves and ignoring or undermining the Iraqi government. I feel tremendous sympathy for the people in those settlements - especially the younger ones who were born there and are leaving the only homes they ever knew. It is a tragedy for them, and the Israeli government holds the lion's share of the blame for allowing, and encouraging, them to settle on territory which was not rightfully Israel's. Potentially, this is very good news. The settlers will be shaken, but will return to Israel and be able to find homes and rebuild their lives. The Israeli Army will withdraw from the Gaza Strip and stop shooting and getting shot at. The Palestinian Authority will be free in the Gaza Strip to grow and become stronger as a potential state - and this is in everyone's interests, because only a strong Palestinian Authority can ever succeed in negotiating a real ceasefire with Hamas and the other terrorists. One of the most bizarre and disgraceful tendencies we've seen in recent Israeli policy has been to undermine the Palestinian Authority and at the same time demand that it solve the terrorist problem. Overall, this is good news for the Middle East, though it needs careful watching.

Skillyfully re-railed. Do you say Weston-super-Mehr or Weston-super-Mah-Ray?

Urban Myth Debunked (or is it? :ph34r: ) I love that song, ever since my class won a singing competition with it when I was nine.

I'm often tempted to make a tank, especially on my first playthrough of a new RPG, because I'm terrible at combat and because some games aren't well balanced for different character types (Arcanum). You never know for sure that the game won't stop you dead because you can't get past monster X. I try to resist the temptation, though, because it speeds up your progression through the game and that lessens your experience. Plus, with Kotor 2, it turns out that the combat is (*major spoilers*) .

There are indeed. Edit: Oh, that. Well, I think I read it a few months ago.

As you wish. It was interesting to read the long saga of LucasArts' villainy only to have it disappear. I was wondering who on this forum could volunteer to take over the column, as GameSpy clearly haven't found anyone. I couldn't, because I'm never cynical.

Unfortunately we're not allowed to go out onto the terraces anymore, because they're not structurally sound to walk on. It would have been great to sit out there in the summer.

Indeed. I found a picture of where I'm staying now, minus the snow, of course: Link. The famous UEA Ziggurats are I think now listed buildings (protected cultural heritage), which is a shame 'cause they could do with some serious renovations.

Oshiemasen! Bukkake wa dame desu yo! Fionavar-san wa okoru ka mo shiremasen. :ph34r:

It's almost tempting to play through with a character of 8 Wis, 8 Int and 8 Cha, just to see what effect it has. If I thought I'd discover anything new that way, I'd do it, but otherwise I think it'd get old very quickly. I'm just wondering whether to go through Arcanum on low intelligence again - that was funny. :D

Ohayou gozaimasu. Nemutakunai no?

Really? I've never seen any calculation of sales, let alone LucasArts' internal projections. Share! Mr. Morgan seemed confident it would take a day or so. They probably deleted it and are too embarrassed to say. I wonder if Obsidian actually secured LucasArts' agreement for this patch before they prepared it. LucasArts had commissioned a bug fix, but maybe Obsidian just tried to bounce the movie/music thing onto them. I'm surprised it's just disappeared, because I thought there was pressure from the composer for the music upgrade, at least. Has anyone contacted him about it?

*sigh* Link (try number four) That would be a libeller, I think.

Ah, the wonder of nature! Ah, the stupidity of man!

Free-floating or attachable?

And now it's not? I'm currently living in Norwich, home of Alan Partridge and Delia Smith . Only for another two weeks, though, then off to pastures new (and unknown).

I thought the point of that quest was that you named your weakest skill, and the quest converted it from a cross-class skill to a class skill. So you don't actually get skill points, but you do benefit.

I'm up for it, though it'll take me a day or two to get my team organised.

Are you referring to the Great London Freak-Dangle, or is this something else? It's possible that he could levitate by speaking, causing his listeners to have mild brain haemorrhages and halucinate.

Evil Exiles learn Force Crush at a specific point in the game - you can't select it as a feat, and all classes get it. I think (I may be wrong) that Marauder Fury is a power that Sith Marauders get, and Rage is a Wookie thing.

Not all at the same time, no. I have noticed that if I load a game there, some mercs have force masks that didn't before the load. No idea why this should be.

Wrong time of day, maybe? Isn't North America asleep? Or we could try Fantasy Cricket. :ph34r: